A Message in the Flowers
by dominanttuba
Summary: "Wormwood and asphodel were the first potions ingredients Professor Snape ever taught me about. The very first things he spoke to me about, in fact. Up until now, that was a hard memory to recall."


A/N: I've been told that it was Whitehound who first noticed the meanings I reference - I mean to take no credit!

Al had always been a reader, but this was something new entirely, both Harry and Ginny agreed. And what was more, the books he toted around this summer weren't the usual muggle classic novels, or tales of the great wizarding adventures and histories that usually accompanied him during the summer months. This year, before his fifth term at Hogwarts, the books Al had chosen gave Harry pause.

Around the office, he'd heard other parents discussing the proper response to a sudden interest Dark Arts books, or the discovery of certain… lewder… pieces of literature. Harry wished it was only that simple. Al was not practicing Unforgivables, nor was he hiding copies of Playwizard under his mattress (or so he thought - much more of a James thing to do). No, Al was reading about flowers. Flowers, Victorian Era propriety, dressing and courting traditions, centuries old aristocratic gossip magazines acquired from only-Merlin-knew-where, and dozens of other equally non-standard fare for a sixteen year-old wizard.

The boy in question was currently lounging beneath the old, gnarly, birch tree in the back yard of Grimmauld Place pouring over the most common of his companions - the one with the enormous pansy on the cover.

Finally, watching him from the window above the kitchen sink, Harry couldn't stand it anymore - "Ginny, what if he's… you know…"

Ginny cocked her eyebrow, daring him to say it.

Harry sighed, "c'mon Gin, you know. What if he's gay?"

Ginny went back to the soup she was working on. "So what if he is? We'll still love him anyway. Right?" The last bit was accompanied by the look that made him simultaneously cower before and fall in love with her all over again.

"Of course we will, Gin! I'm just worried for him. You know the wizarding world hasn't come as far as the muggles have in that particular area… it would just make his life so much harder than it should be."

"His life will be just as hard as it needs to be for him to become the man he will be. And if that happens to be a gay man, then there are worse things." Ginny left the stew and came to the window with Harry, watching on as Al scribbled a note in the margin. She sighed, "though, it would still be nice to know for sure. Should we talk to him?"

"I suppose…"

"It's your turn. I talked to Lily when Martin Thomas broke up with her." And she went back to the soup.

Harry groaned… this should be worth the next three parenting talks.

Harry didn't speak to Al immediately, but watched him more closely. He was sending a lot of letters off; almost one a day. It wasn't until he caught Scorpius's name on the envelope that Harry decided he had to talk to his son. And so that night, after dinner, Harry found himself knocking on the door where once he'd searched for a horcrux, but instead found a letter from his mother.

"Come in!"

Harry, entered the neat room decorated in green and silver - not so dissimilar to the decorations that had taken half of the Auror squad to remove when Al had been born.

"What's up, Dad?"

Harry realized he'd been lost in thought, and quickly shook his head and found a seat on the bed. "Not much, Al, how about you?"

"Just writing some letters, doing some work."

"Must be a lot of homework - you seem to spend all of your time reading and writing."

"Oh, I finished my school work weeks ago. This is more for… fun, I guess…"

"Ah…" Harry was at a loss. He noticed the book with the pansy sitting on the bed. He picked it up and leafed through it. It featured page after page of a detailed drawing of a flower, with a page or two of writing following. Harry took a deep breath. "You know, Al, that if there's ever anything you'd like to talk to me about, or tell me, I'm always here for you. And I would support you in anything - whatever it was."

"Dad, you gave me 'the talk' years ago. Aren't we good now?"

"Well, I don't know Al, that's what you need to tell me. Is there anything you want to tell me?"

"I don't know, is there?"

Al seemed confused. Harry was certainly confused.

"Al, I've just noticed that your reading material has been a bit - different - this year. And you're writing an awful lot of letters to Scorpius. I'm not totally oblivious Al, and like I've said, I'll support you no matter what, even if it will be hard for you I'll be there every step of the way, just believe me, and if you ever n-"

"Dad! Do you think I'm gay?"

Harry stopped. "Well, er, yes… I mean, with the books about flowers and the old romance novels and the letters… So, you mean, you're not?"

Al chuckled. "No, Dad, I'm not. And neither is Scorpius, believe me…"

Harry disregarded that. "So, then, why all the… girly books?"

"Research. I'm trying to present at the Potions Conference this year, in the student lecturer series. My topic is on the great boom in potions discovered in the early 19th century - I think it's connected to the development of the Victorian Flower Language. Specifically, that the muggle connections between certain flowers and meanings led to the subsequent wizarding discoveries of those ingredients' abilities - often having something to do with the muggles' meaning."

Silence followed, and then, "What?"

Al sighed. "Here, look at that book more closely. Go to, Rose, for example - there are dozens of them, but they all have something to do with love, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it is used in Amorentia and other lesser infatuation-inducing potions. And here, look up wolfsbane - the muggles have associated it with werewolves. If you look up Fuller's Teasel you'll find the same thing, and both are used in Wolfsbane potion.

But those are the simple ones, they get more complicated. Like for the Draught of Living Death -"

"Wormwood and asphodel" Harry recited, without thinking.

"Erm, yes. And those two combined are pretty interesting - "

But Harry was already to the pages in the book. 'Wormwood - bitter absence; Asphodel - my regrets follow you to the grave...'

Harry closed the book and stared at the floor. He would have been just there, beneath the window, when he found the letter and the photograph and cried over her. He looked to his son, to whom he'd given his name and her eyes. He liked to think that, somewhere, Severus Snape had appreciated that. Now, sitting in Al's room deciphering the meaning of Snape's last message to him (or first, depending on how you thought about it) Harry was sure that he'd done the right thing. He pulled Al to him and kissed his forehead, so appreciative again that he could do for Al and James and Lily those simple things that his parents could never do for him.

Harry handed the book back to Al. "Son, you're brilliant. Truly. I'm sure you'll be given the lecture and I would love to come and hear it." He rose and made for the door.

"Dad - what?..."

"Wormwood and asphodel were the first potions ingredients Professor Snape ever taught me about. The very first things he spoke to me about, in fact. Up until now, that was a hard memory to recall."

And with a final smile from his father, Al was left to pour over the pages of Asphodel and Wormwood to try and parse out what in Merlin's name his father was talking about.


End file.
